Christian Hartel, president and CEO of WACKER Chemical, a century-old German chemical company, recently told the first financial reporter in an interview that the company's special silicone expansion project at the Zhangjiagang production base is progressing smoothly and is expected to be put into production early next year.
A year ago, WACKER Chemie announced an investment of 150 million euros to expand its specialty silicone production capacity at its Zhangjiagang site in response to growing market demand. This investment is also the largest single investment since the official opening of the WACKER Zhangjiagang production site in 2010.
Silicones are widely used, and the Zhangjiagang site accounts for about 15 to 20 percent of WACKER's global silicones production capacity. Mr Heda said that share would continue to rise through increased investment in China.
"Our business is largely benefiting from market demand driven by global economic megatends, such as sustainability, electric vehicles and more. In China, those demands are even stronger, and that's why we're investing in China." He told the first financial reporter.
He Da said that the amount of silicone in high-tech products is large, such as the amount of silicone in electric vehicles is three to four times that of traditional internal combustion engine cars. "We are increasingly focusing our research on electric vehicles in China because many of our customers are there and research and development needs to be closer to them."